News organizations are increasingly blocking the #WaybackMachine even as their reporters still depend on it 📰

In PRESERVING THE WEB IN THE AGE OF AI, @mark, Director of the Wayback Machine at the #InternetArchive, explains how major newsroom staff rely on archived web history because their internal archives often miss the deeper public record.

🎧 Listen on the Future Knowledge #podcast ⤵️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/episodes/preserving-the-web-in-the-age-of-ai
📚 Read VANISHING CULTURE free ⤵️
https://archive.org/details/vanishing-culture-2026

A new independent audit says that Google, Meta, Microsoft are all still tracking users even after they opt out. 55 percent of the sites it checked set ad cookies in a user’s browser even if they opted out of tracking.

The company's all disputed it

https://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/

how diffie hellman key exchange works

(with as little math as possible)

https://wizardzines.com/comics/how-diffie-hellman-key-exchange-works/

This week, 404 Media speaks to Harlo Holmes from Freedom of the Press Foundation about how to fight back against privacy nihilism, digital security practices everyone can use, and the arrests of journalists in the U.S.

Watch/subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chcNrDPhfo0

Large ongoing tor network Sybil attack with over 8400 relays started 2026-02-04 04:49.

Currently over 900 relays are still on the tor network.

https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/contact:[email protected]%20running:true%20

https://nusenu.github.io/OrNetStats/w/contact/32cb0861adc94fe7853fb21328e94596.html
https://nusenu.github.io/OrNetStats/w/contact/7bc6e288b32929b0bce0857f5e80481f.html

"Of all the tools that I use to maintain my equilibrium in these dark days, none is so important as remembering the distinction between happiness, optimism and hope."

An important reminder from the brilliant @pluralistic:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/15/how-the-light-gets-in/#theories-of-change

Just discovered @pluralistic was on The Daily Show a few weeks ago.

**Highlights**:

> "The real culprits are the policy makers... [who guarantee] that people who do the worst things in the worst way will make the most money."

> "Google hasn't made a successful product this millennium."

> "Get rid of the parasitic billionaires who sit in the middle and ruin everything."

Great interview w/ Ronnie Chieng. (16 min)
Watch it on that most enshittified video platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2e-c9SF5nE

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115848576290992814

Really love this elegant and pointed description of #SoftwareEngineering from @pluralistic which immediately enters my personal hall of fame:

“Writing code is about making code that runs well. Software engineering is about making code that fails well.”

This pairs really well with Douglas Adams who once talked about the same topic (more or less) in his own, very funny way:

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”

Practically every tangentially related to work external meeting I have had with other Canadians in the last year has included a segue where all parties discussed taking steps to diversify away from US infra/software/orgs.

It's the kind of activity where nothing seems to be happening, until it happens all at once.

e.g. We began researching, negotiations, and planning early in 2025 and only actually started migrating systems in December. We will begin cancelling contracts later this month.